Ya Bass

Eight Nobel laureates call for Akbar Ganji's release
Reporters Without Borders today hailed a petition calling for the immediate and unconditional release of imprisoned Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji which was launched by Iran's 2003 Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and which has already been signed by seven other Nobel laureates.

"Iran's most senior officials must heed this very clear message from eight world figures who have made outstanding contributions to peace and science," the organisation said, going on to appeal to foreign diplomats based in Tehran to visit Ganji at Milad hospital, where he was taken on 17 July.

Until now, Iran's government and judicial authorities have refused to heed the calls for the release of Ganji, who has been imprisoned for five years and who is continuing the hunger strike he began 54 days ago.

If the international community does not react, Ganji is going to die.

The eight Nobel laureates who have already signed the petition are :

Shirin Ebadi - 2003 Nobel peace prize
John Hume - 1998 Nobel peace prize
Jody Williams - 1997 Nobel peace prize
Archbishop Desmond Tutu - 1984 Nobel peace prize
Mairead Corrigan Maguire - 1976 Nobel peace prize
Betty Williams - 1976 Nobel peace prize
Maurice Allais - 1988 Nobel prize for economics
Georges Charpak - 1992 Nobel prize for physics

The petition can be found here: Free Akbar Ganji: an appeal to Iran.

For a brief background on Ganji and his imprisonment:click here.

Ganji's Letter to Free People of the World (part 1)

As I have said many times before, if I die in prison, it is on the orders of Mr. Khamenei. Mortazavi [a hardline Iranian judge and General Prosecutor of Tehran who ordered the closure of over 80 pro-reform newspapers that supported Mohammad Khatami in 1999 and who is now likely to become Justice Minister in the cabinet of the President-elect Ahmadinejad] gets his orders via Mr. Hejazi directly from Mr. Khamenei. I have opposed the unelected and indefinite rule of Mr. Khamenei. I have said that life-time unaccountable absolute power is at odds with democracy. I said expressing this opinion will be faced with Mr. Khamenei's quick and harsh reaction. What took place proved me right. He does not tolerate any personal criticism. Karroubi, Moeen and Hashemi Rafsanjani all tasted Mr. Khamenei's "religious democracy" in this election. The widespread and organized interference of the Guards Corps and Basij caused the outcry of even Larijani's campaign staff and the person of Mohsen Rezaei. A sultanist system is at odds with democracy. In such a system the sultan rules supreme and everyone else is at his service. Mortazavi has told my wife: "What will happen if Ganji dies? Dozens die everyday in prisons; Ganji will be just one of them." These are Mr. Khamenei's words that are uttered through Mortazavi's lips. Ganji dies, but the demand for freedom, democracy, political justice, hope, aspirations and ideals won't. Love for others and self-sacrifice for people will always continue to live.

Ganji's Second Letter to the Free People of the World

Instead of giving up the resistance against tyrants and those who violate human rights, we should refute the pre-modern illusions of the people. We should point out that there are no saviors. All men are regular people and prone to error. Earthly human is sinful and erring.
- - - We should relentlessly criticize everyone's opinions and beliefs, including those of the dissidents....It is not at all important that a person is not tolerant of criticism, neither is it important that the disciples of a political thinker or activist consider him immune to error, what is important is that criticism should be possible, so that everyone would get criticized in the public arena, and no one could deceive the people with totalitarian ideologies. Brave intellectuals and thinkers are the ones who should be building the public arena, instead of waiting for the ruling regime to build it for them.

I was reminded of Milan Kundera. In his novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", recounting the situation after the "Spring of Prague", Kundera writes: "Is it better to shout out and hasten our death or to keep our silence and lengthen our slow and gradual dying"
- - -
This candle is about to die out. But this voice will not be silenced. This is the voice of peaceful life, tolerating the other, love for humanity, self-sacrifice for people, seeking truth, seeking freedom, demand for democracy, respecting the opponents, welcoming different lifestyles, separation of the state and the civil society, separation of the private sphere and the public sphere, separation of religion and state, equality of all humans, rationality, federalism within a democratic Iran, rejecting violence.

This candle is about to die out, but this voice will raise louder voices in its wake.